Solitaire game starting late '42

[EUBanana]

There's some more bombing and shelling but nothing is disorganised.

Then there's a whole bunch of attacks. In the fine weather, at least in Russia and to an extent China, it seems like the Axis still have the initiative.

[EUBanana]

Not going to go over all of them but Kursk falls, thanks to an opportunity created by an O chit.

I guess I should probably have used that bomber more for a ground attack to break up the attackers rather than in defensive intercept like this, as taking a couple of units out in the dense battlefield seem maybe better than +3 defensive factors.

[EUBanana]

The Germans have a very good impulse, they basically smash it with every attack. Some luck involved there, though the odds were in their favour still. The front is pretty thick with units around Bryansk, but progress is made. And around Kursk the Russian defencesa re a bit thin again.

However the German attack near Pskov is not a blitzkrieg after all, due to the presence of an antitank gun, and the entire Pskov front is disorganised. Maybe the Russians should try and attack!

[EUBanana]

The Japanese inch a bit closer to MacArthur. Divisions from Malaya land in the south.

[EUBanana]

No weather problems at all in 1943's summer...

[EUBanana]

Onto impulse #5, May/June 1943.

US takes an air action, everybody else land.

Strategic bombing for starters, still plenty of heavy bombers in the UK not activated yet. It does as much as I have become used to expecting... [:'(]

[EUBanana]

Then the real reason for the US air action (though there's plenty of rebasing to do as well, so it's a fairly busy action!)... heavy bombing of Naples.

[EUBanana]

And then the Second Battle of Naples begins... with the biggest naval bombardment of the war. And Wavell's sage advice.

A pyrrhic victory, as the Commonwealth is all disorganised, but they do at least inflict a tiny amount of damage as a consolation prize.

[EUBanana]

Back to the Axis, they all go for land actions again, thogu Italy is a backwater for reals now.

The Germans still have more ARM than their opponents, so there's still chances. The Soviets have taken a real beating, but they have enough to take it it seems for now.

There are a few air attacks but the Soviet airforce fend them all off - no losses on either side.

And then a couple of attacks where the Germans can mass ARMs - or totally surround the enemy.

[EUBanana]

End result is German success in both, and another irruption of tanks towards Voronezh... though the Russians should be able to plug everyything.

They are taking a hell of a beating in destroyed and shattered units though.

[cfinch]

if the line holds shattered are ok as the pop right back up to the axis' dismay
you haven't mentioned it but you are railing out soviet factories? given the slow start i think was mentioned you should have saved most of the front line factories (if not this may be hurting soviet production and also causing some of your "force" issues)

[craigbear]

Is that 10-6 German out of supply? You can get the Sturmovick for a ground strike (with fighter escort if needed... but I do not see any German FTR to stop you). That will be 3 factors to attack... you might even get a blitz if you can attack with the HQ Arm and have an Arm div or corps hidden under some of the units there about. Add the 2-5 mot to soak up any losses.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: cfinch

if the line holds shattered are ok as the pop right back up to the axis' dismay
you haven't mentioned it but you are railing out soviet factories? given the slow start i think was mentioned you should have saved most of the front line factories (if not this may be hurting soviet production and also causing some of your "force" issues)

In previous games I did rail factories without any problem. In this game I tried to rail them whenever the USSR had rail moves - and the game never let me do it.

[&:]

I used to play a much much older version of WiF than I am right now. I basically bought it when it came out and occasionally dipped toe, and recently decided to see if there was still a WiF community on here (I see there is!). Updated it, started fooling some more. i think how you rail factories must have changed, or there must have been some rule implemented on when you can do it or something, because while I did it before no problem, I never got it working in this game.

[&:]

So yeah. The Russkies are not exactly in a good spot. Their production is sort of the same as the Germans at the moment, slightly less? I guess in most games at this point they should have greater production than Germany does.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: craigbear

Is that 10-6 German out of supply? You can get the Sturmovick for a ground strike (with fighter escort if needed... but I do not see any German FTR to stop you). That will be 3 factors to attack... you might even get a blitz if you can attack with the HQ Arm and have an Arm div or corps hidden under some of the units there about. Add the 2-5 mot to soak up any losses.

It is, but I'm not sure the Russians have a bomber to attack with. That Shturmovik you see on the map is disorged.

it might not be that clear frmo the AAR as I tend to sort of skim the air moves, and only really put up a screenshot of something if its a particularly important bombing, but for most of the game the USSR's air force has been kicked around at will by the Luftwaffe. Early in '43 I had the Russians try to put an end to that by building a lot of fighters (FTR2s an 3s), and it seems to have to worked, this turns bombing from the Luftwaffe was mostly deflected, without any real loss of aircraft no the Russians side. But they don't have many bombers, I think they only got 1 maybe 2 shturmoviks atm. There might be a fighter-bomber in range though.

If they don't have a way to cut off that ARM they'll probably try hightailing it over the river again.

Or... the Russians have an O-chit, they could try a counterattack on those extended, spread out and in some cases disorged Germans around Kursk.

I actually checked the 'destroyed' pool, in terms of units its actually pretty even between Germany and the USSR (though Germany lost a lot more divisions than corps, they also lost some very nice ARMs). So yes I think the impression I got, that the Russians were being meatgrindered, isnt quite so bad when you consider that a lot of them are just shattered.

[EUBanana]

Impulse #7, Allies go.

Everybody does a land action, except the Commonwealth, who do a combined.

Storms in the Pacific so my hopes of invasions by the Americans are dashed, I think a combined action will be enough to try that one, so a land for now will be fine, allows debarking and such.

The US goes for a port attack on Rabaul from their force in the Solomons, Rabaul does have fighter cover but its disorged at the moment from earlier impulses. I wasn't expecting a lot, but they do do some damage. Those Japanese cruisers are quite deadly so every one out for a bit is good.

[EUBanana]

A CW transport collects the MAR in Italy, it's not even on the front line, and a MAR is worth more than rearguard.

Another one goes from Gibraltar to the East Coast, there's plenty of Americans coming.

Then the US/CW indulges in some strategic bombing (this is the remainder of most of their strategic bombers, no point buying them if you don't use them all every turn, right?). Unfortunately it does about as much as it always seems to. The Allies just can't roll above 5 on strat bomb rolls, and not for want of trying.

Though this is the first time LND-4s have been used in Italy. The US has a lot of B17s/B24s.

[EUBanana]

Some rather desperate bombing of Tripoli with rather ill suited units... I think the Commonwealth might have bought too many NAVs and carrier air. It seemed a waste to have all those CVs without aircraft unusable (even now there's a bunch in Liverpool empty), and then we got the Sunderlands, three Beauforts, Vildebeest... and naval supremacy is total, at least right now.

I suppose it's easy to say that now, and not in 1942, when the situation was considerably hairier with uboats and the Italians than they are now.

[EUBanana]

Bunch more unloading, Omar Bradley unloads at Bristol with a cavalry division, another US INF unloads in Libya.

Terrible weather hit the Eastern Front, so bad basically everything was out of supply and immovable. A few things were tweaked by the USSR, but not much. Counteroffensives were certainly right out.

[EUBanana]

The Axis go.

The weather is so bad Germany and Japan take naval actions, despite the action on the eastern front. It's so enmired that moving a few things one hex doesn't exactly seem worth it, and they may as well have at it with the Atlantic I suppose.

Uboats fan out into the Atlantic. Also the Bismarck slips the noose at Bordeaux. The CW try to intercept in the Bay of Biscay, but the Bismarck makes it out to the Faeroes Gap.

It's minor but a German uboat is docked at La Spezia because I didn't know about the speed penalty for ally friction, and it's been annoying the hell out of me for ages. It's almost worth an impulse fixing that... And there's a div in Norway to relocate too so a cruiser (and acouple of TRNs, because why not, never know) go to the Baltic.

The Japanese ponder the American fleet in the Solomons, but they can only get into the 2 b ox and it doesnt look like they are that much better off. Also seems likely the US will be in that sea space some more in future, ringed with hopefully in future aavailable bombers, so why risk it now. A couple of MAR divisions are picked from Guadalcanl and Rabaul (Rabaul still has an INF-division) and moved to Truk as a rapid reaction counterinvasion force. CV Hiryu moves from Japan, now with its aircraft loaded aboard, and joins the fleets patrolling outside Truk, so another CV in the Central Pacific, so a total of 5 big carriers.

Still this sacrificial lamb to try and kill, too.

[EUBanana]

Despite all the potential naval action... nothing happens.